Bourse profit up 46% in 9 months to P707M

By Riza Lozada

The Philippine Stock Exchange Inc. (PSE) net profit for the first nine months increased 45.9 percent to P707.35 million from P484.71 million a year ago.

The growth in profit was primarily due to a 119.0 percent surge in the company’s other income to P371.35 million, boosted by revenues from the sale of PSE’s Tektite office space.

The PSE’s operating revenues rose 8.8 percent to P953.7 million from P876.23 million in the same period a year ago.

Listing-related fees, the biggest component of operating revenues, went up by 22 percent.

Trading-related fees were also higher by 7.8 percent while service fees from the Securities Clearing Corporation of the Philippines were marginally lower by 0.3 percent based on the slight decline in average daily trading volume.

Costs during the January to September period were managed as total expenses went down by 4.6 percent.

“Trading activity is slightly higher this year and we hope to see some more follow-on offerings in the fourth quarter. Year-to-date, net foreign buying is over P50 billion with our main index, the PSEi, up around 20 percent. We would like to keep this momentum going to the next year by launching more products and making our market more attractive to both foreign and local investors,” PSE President and CEO Ramon Monzon said.

The PSE is also soliciting comments to its proposed guidelines for short selling transactions, which the PSE aims to launch during the first half of 2018.